Voice of the Worm
by Cryptonomos
Summary: Before Grima became Wormtongue he was a love-smitten young man. Seeking advice from a powerful wizard, he was warned of a greater danger and called to a great sacrifice. (This story will be told in four parts.)
1. Part 1

Her laughter, pure and clear as silver yuletide bells, rang from the hills of Edoras. Her golden hair floated behind her as she ran, like the banner of a high elven lord. While Hama covered his eyes and called out a slow count to twenty, the children living in and around the great hall Meduseld scattered to find a hiding place.

Grima, son of Galmod, struggled to keep Eowyn in his sight as she raced downhill. Though his father was of Rohan, his mother had been from Dunland, giving him the slight build and dark hair of the wildmen of the hills. Slower and weaker than the other boys, he could just stay close enough to see where Eowyn hid, in the brush-covered washes behind the hill.

He had been trying to speak to her for days, but he could never catch her alone. Whenever he had worked up the courage to face her, he would find one of her girl friends close by, or worse, one of the tall golden-haired Rohan boys.

Eowyn held out an arm and tried to block him as he slid in behind the bush next to her. "Ai! Find your own place."

"This place is big enough for two."

"You'll get me caught."

"Not if you're quiet."

"I don't want you here."

"I've been wanting to tell you a secret."

Curiosity stalled the growing stormfront of her anger. "What secret?"

Grima tried to take her hand, but Eowyn snatched it away. This wasn't working out the way he had planned.

He had spent many long nights dreaming of the moment when he could confess his love for her. He had long imagined her surprised gasp at his confession, followed by the sudden realization that she loved him as well. But as he looked into her hard eyes and the cute freckled nose wrinkled in disgust, he felt his resolve weaken.

"For a long time now... I've been wanting to tell you... I like you!" He lunged forward, lips puckered, aiming for her mouth.

"Ew!" Eowyn recoiled.

"Do you think you could like me too?"

With a shocked expression, she reared back and gasped. Eowyn opened those perfect red lips...

...and laughed.

Her laughter was the sharp trill of ringing bells. "Like _you_, Grima? Like Grima the gross? Greasy Grima? Grima with the rat-like hair?"

Grima shrank back into the shadows beneath the bush.

"You stay here." Eowyn rose, still laughing. "I'll find somewhere else to hide." She disappeared in a rustle of leaves.

Grima hugged himself, feeling suddenly cold. He was too stunned to cry, but his heart stung as if he'd been slapped in the chest.

Hama called out in the distance. "I see you! I caught you, Eowyn!"

Hama never found him. Grima thought he'd probably never looked.


	2. Part 2

Seven years later, Grima was returning from the master of horses, having read out a letter from Gondor demanding better terms for the sale of their horses, and having transcribed the horsemaster's insulting reply, when he spied Eowyn standing at the top of the steps of Meduseld. She gazed out over the horizon awaiting the return of Theodred's patrol, her cousin and her love.

Grima mounted the steps. "Hello, Eowyn."

"Hello," she muttered, not even looking at him.

Grima stopped and watched her, but she didn't seem to notice him. On impulse, he entered Meduseld and retrieved a lute from the room he shared with his father. His voice was the one gift his mother had given him and he'd been honing it for such an occasion. He might not ever have another chance he thought.

He returned to the steps outside and began playing. She didn't respond until he starting singing, then she turned a wondering look on him as he sang of her beauty and her grace. He poured out his love for her, his heart soaring as he stared into her eyes, and as the final chords played out the last of his hopes and dreams for her, he thought he saw a tear form in her eye. She reached out and almost touched his arm, a wan smile curved her lips, but the look in her eye wasn't love. It was pity.

"They're here!" a voice called out from below. "The eored have returned!"

Eowyn turned away and her face lit up.

One hundred and twenty mounted warriors thundered into the city. Eowyn raced down the stairs in breathless anticipation.

Grima stood forgotten at the top, his lute dangling from one hand.


	3. Part 3

Grima's father, Galmod, had been a respected captain of an eored. A friend of Theoden king, it was thought by all that he would someday be chosen as one of the three marshals of the mark.

He had found Grima's mother, Cwena, when he came across a group of dunlending taking turns assaulting one of their women. Galmod rescued her and, discovering her beauty, took her as his wife. However, Cwena was never truly welcome among the women of Rohan. She spent increasing amounts of time wandering the hills searching for herbs for her dunlending medicines until one day she never returned.

Distraught, Galmod searched among the caves of the wargs and the camps of the orcs but found no trace of her. He led the men of his eored on increasingly dangerous raids into the villages of the dunlendings until Theoden was forced to take away his captaincy. He had been convinced that the wild men had stolen her away. Grima knew better. Grima knew she had simply left them-as he was doing now.

"But this is your home!" Galmod set his tankard on their table with a loud clank.

"I have no home." Grima stared into Galmod's drink-reddened eyes, refusing to look away. "I'm neither an Eorling nor a Dunlending. I don't belong anywhere."

"That's not true! Why only this morning you were reading letters for the master of the horse."

Eowyn's look of pity flashed through Grima's memory. "A skill that no one values or respects-"

"-But one they need! Why you might even become adviser to Theoden king himself one day."

"And I will be all the more useful once I learn the secrets of the wizards."

"Of all you've told me this night, that is the most worrisome. I tell you the white wizard is no friend of Rohan."

"Did not Gondor give him the tower of Orthanc to guard Isengard?"

"And yet he now calls himself "Lord of Isengard."

"Does he not still guard the gap to our west?"

"So he says, but I say he's formed a pact with the wildmen."

Grima shook his head. "Your fears do you no credit."

Galmod's face flushed with something other than alcohol. "Your youthful ignorance will get you killed-or worse! From a distance, the Istari may look like men, but they are as different from us as we are from orcs. Don't trust the wizards."

Grima gripped his own empty cup and fought down the urge to smash it into his father's face. In a voice that quivered with suppressed rage, he said, "I have long ago learned to trust no one, but I will use anyone if they may be of benefit to me."

Besides, he thought. What other choice do I really have?


	4. Part 4

"What do you want?"

Grima stared, trembling, into Saruman's eyes. The eyes of men hung lazily over the top of their irises as if they were half asleep. Saruman's eyes were wide open, showing the whites all around. They reminded Grima of the eyes of the hawks with which the young lords of Gondor had taken to hunting. They were the eyes of one who could spot their prey miles away, who saw people as tools to be used, whose vision could cut through flesh to the soul hidden beneath.

His father's words came back to haunt Grima. _The Istari may look like men, but they are as different from us as we are from orcs._

"As I-I just said." Grima swallowed. "To apprentice under you and learn the knowledge of wizards."

"For more than fifty lives of men I have dwelt in middle earth, adding two-thousand years of knowledge to what I brought with me from Valinor. Even if you were as old as me, you could not contain the knowledge I have. What do you want to do with my knowledge?"

Coming here was madness, Grima thought. No wizard had ever taken a man as an apprentice. He felt a growing sense of hopelessness and his own foolishness. "I seek...to learn how to earn...the respect of men."

"Men? Or a woman? Is that the image of Theoden's niece I see in your eye?" He spoke without expression, his face emotionless, as if it weren't really a face but a coincidence of flesh.

Grima nodded guiltily, not trusting his voice.

Saruman cocked his head in an almost birdlike fashion. "Your coming may have been timely." He gestured to drawing room and perched on a chair before an enormous table. A silver platter with a crystal decanter and a pair of glasses floated over to rest at his elbow. Grima sat awkwardly nearby.

"War is coming." Saruman poured himself a glass of amber liquid. "The great eye has fixed itself upon the west and all the realms of men will soon be swept away in blood and fire...unless I can stop it."

Grima glanced at the empty glass, then back and Saruman with no idea where the conversation was going.

"Tell me, Grima. Would you save the Rohirrim? Would you save your Eowyn?"

Grima nodded again, wondering if he had actually told Saruman his name.

"Would you be willing to kill Theoden or his son Theodred or even Eowyn's brother Eomer?"

Grima sat back in shock. "Do you think that will be necessary?"

Saruman drank from his glass and set it down. "To protect the Rohirrim, we must steal their courage."

"But won't they need their courage to stand against what is coming?"

Saruman frowned. The first hint of a human emotion. It somehow made him more frightening as if humanity were some separate thing he could put on and take off like a cloak. "What good is courage if they have not the strength to make use of it? Such courage will only get them killed. If you would save them, you must steal away their courage, even if you must become a villain."

"But...how could I do that?"

Saruman poured the amber liquid into the second glass and set it on the table before him. "It is said that even Sauron himself fears my voice. If you are willing to become my creature, I can make you my voice. Through you, we will counsel wisdom to Theoden king and his marshals." Saruman slid the glass forward.

"And Eowyn?" Grima asked.

Saruman smiled. It was an awkward creaking upward of the corners of his mouth. "If Sauron fears my voice, what chance does she have?"

Grima smiled, imagining Eowyn's reaction when he sang to her with Saruman's voice. He reached for the glass.

Saruman's hand clamped on his wrist.

Grima could feel the bones dig into his wrist like talons beneath the pale pads of Saruman's fingers.

"This is more binding than any oath you've ever taken. You _cannot_ change your mind."

Grima nodded and Saruman released him. Grima tossed back the drink.

It struck the back of his mouth like block of ice and burned his throat like a cold flame. Grima felt a rising wave of nausea as if something solid had been shoved down his throat, but his throat was sealed shut so that nothing could escape. He reached into his mouth and felt for his tongue which seemed to have actually shrunk in size.

Saruman's smiled broadened, but something other than humor glittered in his unblinking eyes. "Now. Let us begin to prepare you for the task at hand."

Grima swallowed, finally able to breathe. "Yes master." His voice was a rasping whisper, but the words he had spoken were not his.

**I hope you enjoyed this story. If so, please share it with your friends.**


End file.
